At the present time, vehicle seats of a motor vehicle travel along seat rails or rail-like mechanisms. In this case, the seat rails are arranged on a floor of the motor vehicle. However, the rails or a cover or overlay of the rails is or are visible, or at least partially visible, when the vehicle seat travels.
JPS 6297044 U describes a vehicle seat with an understructure that can travel along two rails. The rails are embedded in a plate. The understructure of the vehicle seat is arranged above the plate and can travel along the plate.
A drawback of vehicle seats of this kind is the circumstance that, when the seat travels, the feet of a seat occupant sitting on the vehicle seat have to be guided along or pulled along. Therefore, when the vehicle seat travels in the longitudinal direction, the position of the feet placed on the floor or resting on the floor changes relative to the rest of the body of the seat occupant. Thus, in present-day vehicle seats, essentially no attention is paid to the relative movement of the feet of the seat occupant. This is associated with losses in comfort for the seat occupant.
In present-day motor vehicles, therefore, it is not taken into consideration that, when the feet of the seat occupant are placed on the floor of the motor vehicle, an angle between the feet and the rest of the body of the seat occupant changes when the vehicle seat travels forward or backward. Therefore, the feet must be repositioned or moved by the seat occupant himself/herself, so that, once again, an angle that is felt to be pleasant is present between the feet and the rest of the body of the seat occupant. A relaxed position or resting position cannot be realized in this way. This is because the position of the feet and the physical comfort thereof are not taken into consideration at the present time when the vehicle seat is adjusted.
Furthermore, the electrification of the drive of motor vehicles as well as the possibility of operating motor vehicles in an autonomous driving mode have given rise to a new interior atmosphere. This interior atmosphere allows new seat configurations. When, in the case of an electric vehicle, a transmission and a drive shaft are eliminated, the elimination thereof makes possible an essentially larger path of travel of a vehicle seat on a flat surface of a floor of the motor vehicle than is the case for a motor vehicle with a transmission and a drive shaft. However, the present-day concepts of seat rails in motor vehicles do not permit such a large path of travel to be realized. In addition, present-day seat rails do not fit into the concept of a vehicle interior or passenger compartment as an extended living space.